"As an exception! Thou seest, Ensign, by this elevation of the bone, and the protuberance of the more fleshy parts, that the peculiarity is an exception. I should rather have said that the nose originally inclined to the Roman. The departure from regularity has been produced by some casualty of their warfare, such as a blow from a tomahawk, or the gash of a knife--ay! here thou seest the scar left by the weapon! It is concealed by the paint, but remove that, and you will find it hath all the form of a cicatrice of a corresponding shape. These departures from generalities have a tendency to confound pretenders; a happy circumstance, in itself, for the progress of knowledge on fixed principles. Place the subject more erect, that we may see the natural movement of the muscles. Here is an evidence of great aquatic habits in the dimensions of the foot, which go to confirm original conceptions. It is a happy proof, through which, reasonable and prudent conclusions confirm the quick-sighted glances of practice. I pronounce the fellow to be a Narragansett." "Is it then a Narragansett that hath a foot to confound a trail?" returned Eben Dudley, who had been studying the movements and attitudes of the captive with quite as much keenness, and with something more of understanding, than the leech. "Brother Ring, hast ever known an Indian leave such an out-turning foot-print on the leaves?" "Ensign, I marvel that a man of thy discretion should dwell on a slight variety of movement, when a case exists in which the laws of nature may be traced to their sources. This training for the Indian troubles hath made thee critical in the position of a foot. I have said that the fellow is a Narragansett, and what I have uttered hath not been lightly ventured. Here is the peculiar formation of the foot, which hath been obtained in infancy, a fullness in the muscles of the breast and shoulders, from unusual exercise in an element denser than the air, and a nicer construction in--" The physician paused, for Dudley had coolly advanced to the captive, and, raising the thin robe of deer-skin which was thrown over the whole of his superior members, he exposed the unequivocal skin of a white man. This would have proved an embarrassing refutation to one accustomed to the conflict of wits; but monopoly, in certain branches of knowledge, had produced in favor of Doctor Ergot an acknowledged superiority, that, in its effects, might be likened to the predominating influence of any other aristocracy, on those faculties that have been benumbed by its operation. His opinion changed, which is more than can be said of his countenance, for, with the readiness of invention which is so often practised in the felicitous institutions we have named, and by which the reasoning instead of regulating is adapted to the practice, he exclaimed with uplifted hands and eyes that bespoke the fullness of his admiration--